Sunderland bid €30m for him in the summer, but is this Marseille winger what the bottom club need in January?

Sunderland bid €30m for Igor Paixao in the summer, and two months on they are bottom of the Premier League and desperately short of goals. He would help with that, but a January deal looks harder, and the fit less neat, than the transfer noise suggests.

The table is blunt. After Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Coventry City, Sunderland are 20th on five points from nine games, with seven goals scored and 17 conceded. They haven’t won in the league since beating Fulham on 30 August, and Regis Le Bris, who took them to seventh last season, has admitted they are in a relegation battle. The one comfort is that 17th place is only two points away.

Paixao, meanwhile, is still at Marseille and, by his own account, more likely to leave next summer than in January.

That’s awkward for the Black Cats, who may not have until next summer. So is he the right man, and can they even get him in time?

How close did Sunderland actually get?

Close enough to divide Marseille. Sunderland offered €30m at the end of the window, and reports say owner Frank McCourt was tempted to accept before the club’s management and staff opposed the sale, with coach Bruno Genesio and sporting director Gregory Lorenzi pushing to keep the winger.

He was reportedly valued at around €40m, and reports also said he had agreed terms with Sunderland and accepted that he might leave.

President Stephane Richard later described his own part in stopping it. “I threw all my strength into keeping Igor, but in the end the decision was Frank McCourt’s,” he said.

Sunderland moved on quickly and landed Malick Fofana from Lyon for £26m, a winger Chelsea and Inter had been chasing a year earlier. Worth remembering, that, because it changes the question Sunderland would be asking in January.

Is he really struggling at Marseille?

He was. Paixao reached mid-October with no goals and one assist from six matches. When he was taken off in the 87th minute at Troyes on 11 October, he declined to shake Genesio’s hand.

Genesio’s explanation a few days later was unusually frank. “Igor could have, should have, gone to Sunderland. It didn’t happen for various reasons. Perhaps that frustration hasn’t been completely digested,” he said. “He’s in a period of doubt and it’s up to us to show him our confidence.”

But the “struggling” label is now a couple of weeks out of date. He scored at Angers on 18 October and again against Le Havre a week later, both league wins, as Marseille strung three in a row together and climbed to eighth.

It’s not all rosy. He got 45 minutes off the bench in the Europa League defeat at Sturm Graz, and he left the Le Havre game with his arm immobilised after landing on his shoulder. The club called that a precaution and he was back in training on Wednesday, ahead of Toulouse at the Velodrome on Sunday night.

Across seven league games and 546 minutes this season he has two goals from 15 shots, six chances created and 10 successful dribbles from 27 attempts. Eight of those 15 shots came in one game, at Angers. Last season he managed 12 goals in 42 appearances in all competitions, so the ceiling is higher than the current numbers show.

Does Igor Paixao suit a relegation fight?

What he would give Sunderland

Shots from a player who wants to take them. Since scoring three at Manchester City on 20 September, Sunderland have one league goal in four games, and that was Enzo Le Fee’s penalty at Coventry. They had 17 shots that day and only two on target, and they completed three of their 22 crosses.

Paixao is a right-footed left winger who can also play as a number 10, and he goes looking for the goal. He had eight shots at Angers and four in 45 minutes at Sturm Graz, and there’s real value in that for a side this short of ideas in the final third.

He also works back, which matters more at the bottom than it did at Marseille. “He makes recovery runs, he comes to help his left-back,” Genesio said, even while admitting the attacking output had dropped. Sunderland have conceded six league goals from individual errors this season, so a forward who covers his full-back is no small thing.

And he wants the move. A player who reportedly agreed terms in August, and whose form dropped when the deal collapsed, is hardly going to treat the Stadium of Light as a last resort. Plenty of January signings can’t say that.

Why the fit isn’t as clean as it looks

The first problem is where he plays. Fofana was expected to work from the left, and Paixao is a left winger too. Sunderland’s thin spot has been the other flank: coverage at the time of the Fofana deal noted that no specialist right winger had arrived, and Trai Hume was used on that side early in the season.

Le Bris also has more attackers than minutes already. Chemsdine Talbi was left out of the Europa League squad after late talks over a move to Saudi Arabia, and the crowd were chanting his name during the Brighton defeat. In Wednesday’s 3-2 League Cup win over Brentford he played at number 10 and scored, Fofana got his first Sunderland goal and Jocelin Ta Bi made three assists.

Yet at Coventry, Fofana only came on with 15 minutes left. There is some room, because Romaine Mundle is out with a knee injury, but a £26m winger on the bench isn’t an obvious argument for buying another.

Then there’s the mood. The handshake at Troyes and Genesio’s talk of doubt describe a player whose confidence has been fragile this autumn, and a bottom club is a hard place to rebuild it. He has also yet to play in the Premier League, and two goals in two games against Angers and Le Havre don’t tell you how he’d cope with it.

Can they actually get him in January?

This is the part that gets skated over. Paixao himself isn’t pointing at the winter window. Speaking before the Troyes game, he said: “Winter transfer window? I don’t know, it’s difficult because in January the teams are already formed.” He added: “There’s a better chance I will leave next summer,” along with “It’s also a dream to play in the Premier League.”

Marseille’s money problems are real. Reports say they must raise at least €75m and complete several sales before 30 June 2027. But look at that date. A sale in June would still count, so January isn’t their only way out, and it only suits them if the price is right.

The urgency is all on Sunderland’s side. Paixao is under contract until 2030, Marseille are climbing the table, and the coach and sporting director fought to keep him last time. French reports last week expected Sunderland to return and said Paixao is keen, but every bid on record is from the summer. No January offer has been reported.

Nor is the road otherwise clear. Paixao has ruled out going home for now, though he said in October that he still dreams of playing for Flamengo one day. Staying in Europe leaves other options open: Fenerbahce were linked with him in September, and Aston Villa made contact earlier in the summer.

Verdict: Igor Paixao to Sunderland only makes sense at the right price

He suits what Sunderland lack, if not quite where they lack it. They need a forward who shoots, works and wants to be there, and on his day Paixao is all three.

But I wouldn’t go back at the €40m he was reportedly valued at in the summer. Sunderland are already carrying Fofana’s fee and an obligation to buy Kevin Danso reportedly worth around £25m, and a long contract for a winger is a heavy thing to carry into the Championship if this goes wrong. At around €30m, with Marseille needing the money and the player pushing for it, it becomes a gamble worth taking.

The bigger worry is that January may be the wrong window for both of them. Two points from 17th, Sunderland can’t wait for next summer, and next summer is exactly when Paixao says he’s likeliest to go. If they end up with him in June, it needs to be as a Premier League club.